[QUOTE=chaoticbear]
Pasta takes me hardly any time at all to cook. The macaroni and cheese I just cooked was done in 4 and a half minutes.
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I don’t get this. The temperature of boiling water is 212F (100C) no matter how hard it’s boiling, isn’t it? The only way I know to change that is to change the pressure or add salt.
I like all these little freezing hints! I bought the tube of tomato paste, but I think I’ll be freezing dollops from the can in the future. I haven’t done it yet, but you can freeze lemon zest and lemon juice. I freeze tomato sauce all the time. I also freeze a large knob of ginger. I’ll hack a small piece off, and it takes almost no time to thaw, then mince. I freeze whole nutmeg like Rachael Ray says. It really makes a difference to use grated whole nutmeg. I also freeze pine nuts, and other nuts.
As to the OP, I tweak almost every recipe I get. I also write down what I did so I can duplicate it later (or not do it again!.) Not baking stuff, though. I’m not very good at baking, and I always follow the recipe.
[QUOTE=AskNott]
“White wine is chilled, but red is at room temp.” Nope. It’s all chilled.
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I remember reading somewhere that it’s important to remember that this hypothetical “room temperature” does not come from a room in a modern home with good insulation and central heating, but a room in a drafty French castle with heavy stone walls that sap the heat out of everything.
I never preheat, either, then again, I don’t bake cookies.
Adding salt to rice or pasta water: it’s not enough salt to taste but too much salt to be healthy: what’s the point?
I ignored the instructions to add celery to chili until a couple years ago: it seemed wacky to me. But the celery really soaks up the chili and flavorings. (I wonder if celery naturally has MSG in it: it seems somewhat savory naturally and especially so when in chili.)
[QUOTE=Ukulele Ike]
I keep my homemade broth in quart-size plastic freezer bags. You can take 'em out and run a little hot water over them while you’re doing other stuff, then pour out a tablespoon or a half-cup or whatever, put the rest back in the freezer.
I seldom measure stuff; I just eyeball it (unless I’m baking).
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I make chicken and beef broth ice cubes, then pop them into a tupperware container. 1 minute in a microwave, and they’re liquid again.
I find that you can never have too many mushrooms in any meal. Garlic gets doubled (at least). Butter usually gets switched to olive oil.
[QUOTE=Phantom Dennis]
I see I’m not the only one who doubles or triples the garlic. You can never have enough garlic. I like to use fresh garlic – powder just isn’t the same. I also use a garlic press – mincing is a pain.
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I don’t do garlic presses. I feel like I lose at least half the clove to the press. I just peel and then smash it good with the side of a chef’s knife and a fist. That’s all that’s needed for most recipes, since garlic pretty well melts as it cooks. If it really needs to be smaller, a few rocks of the knife over the smashed clove is all it takes.
(BTW, the cardiovascular benefits of garlic are best achieved by the smashing method and letting the garlic sit for about 10 minutes before adding it to the pot. There are two chemicals - one in the center green part of the clove and one in the outer white part - that combine when you smash the clove, and then react to make the compound that’s good for your heart. Simply pressing or cutting the clove doesn’t get the chemicals to mingle all that well, and the cardiovascular benefits aren’t realized.)
Trader Joe’s frozen Olympiad pizzas are supposed to be placed directly on the oven rack. I fear a mess, so I just put them on a cookie sheet.
As you can see, I’m not much of a cook…
I hardly ever buy fresh herbs, just substitute dried. I know it makes a difference, but I end up throwing half of the bunch away because a recipe never calls for the entire amount that’s in a bundle. I’ve tried freezing them, but they always end up freezer burned.
I never add the am’t of water called for in Ramen noodles and soups. I always undercut it to make the dish thicker/spicier/etc.
If a product has microwave directions and is at high risk of being total mush at the end of microwaving, I will cut back the microwave time by about 25-40%, fire up the toaster oven while the food is being nuked. I take it out early and finish the cooking in the toaster oven, which usually results in a well cooked meal that isn’t rubbery or soggy.
I can only chop vegetables to two sizes- the small size the chopper blade in the food processor does, and a much larger chop that I can do with a knife. I ignore all instructions about details of how things should be chopped, because I can’t do it any other way, nor can I dice things. I only slice things to one thickness, which is pretty thick (and generally uneven). I use the food processor for slicing whenever possible.
I always use a garlic press to mince garlic. I will substitute minced garlic for sliced garlic, since I can’t slice up a garlic clove.
I don’t do garnishes, or much of anything having to do with food presentation when I’m cooking for just myself and Mr. Neville. We’re OK with eating something that tastes good but looks like vomit.
I usually leave out parsley. I just don’t like it enough to justify buying fresh parsley and chopping it up. I like and use other fresh herbs sometimes, but not parsley. I suspect that a lot of recipes use fresh parsley just for looks, and I don’t care what my food looks like.
I don’t grind my own spices, except for pepper. Anything that requires grinding spices is something for Mr. Neville to cook, not me. I buy pre-ground coffee, too- in my pre-coffee morning state, the Mr. Coffee is enough of an intellectual challenge without the additional steps of grinding the coffee.
I only buy fat-free milk- no whole milk, half-and-half, or cream. Any recipe I make with milk is going to be made with fat-free milk (I generally avoid recipes that call for cream). I sometimes experiment with soy milk if I’m trying to make a recipe that calls for milk parve (not containing meat or dairy) so I can have it with meat.
I leave out celery from all recipes. Mr. Neville can’t stand celery, and I have no strong opinions on it (plus it would be one more ingredient to have to slice up), so I leave it out. I make stuffing with leeks and mushrooms instead of celery, which Mr. Neville and I really like.
I’m always trying to come up with recipes that use only non-perishable ingredients, because there are a lot of weekdays when I’m tired when I get home, and the last thing I want to do is go to the grocery store. I’m not a fan of planning out menus ahead of time, either.
Here, too, especially if a recipe calls for melted butter or butter as a cooking fat. If you can save a step without much difference to the end product, why not do it?
I almost never put anything directly on the oven rack- cookie sheets are so much easier to clean than oven racks and the inside of the oven if anything goes wrong, especially if you put foil on the cookie sheet. The cookie sheet just goes in the dishwasher when you’re done with it, and that’s that- no scrubbing, no oven cleaners, nothing like that. I’ll generally take whatever shortcuts I can get away with to make cleanup easier or makes cleanup require less thinking, because I hate cleaning and washing dishes, and I can never remember all the household hints about which things to soak in what. I use nonstick pots and pans wherever possible, because they don’t require soaking and scrubbing to clean them. I will choose a utensil, pot, or pan that can go in the dishwasher over one that can’t unless it makes a huge difference in the finished product. I don’t use wooden spoons- only vinyl ones, because wooden spoons can’t go in the dishwasher. All of our cutting boards that we use are plastic, for the same reason. I will also take shortcuts to minimize the number of dishes and utensils that I use. I make fun of people on Food Network who measure everything out beforehand into those asinine little bowls- they must have a walk-in dishwasher.
I don’t bake, because baking is generally less forgiving than most other cooking of these kinds of shortcuts. I also don’t bake because Mr. Neville and I need tasty baked goods sitting around so we can eat them like we need additional holes in our heads…
[QUOTE=ZipperJJ]
I don’t add milk to my boxed macaroni and cheese anymore. I found out that it’s not needed, and cuts down on the perishables one needs to keep around in order to have dinner made.
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One of my friends in grad school lived on Pasta Roni made with powdered milk. We had a betting pool going on the question of when he would get scurvy. He never did, though, and eventually he did learn to cook.
I never save the liver.
No matter how much onion they insist on calling for in the recipe, I’ll only ever use one small onion. I don’t know if the onions here in Canada are much larger than what you get in the States or what, but here they sell really big onions, and if you using the entirety of one of those it completely overwhelms the flavour of everything else.
“Refrain from rectally inserting tenderloin.”
Never follow the spices and seasonings, especially salt and pepper. I normally omit the salt and go over on the pepper!